Double Vision: Albrecht Dürer & William Kentridge

20.11.2015 to 06.03.2016 Kulturforum

Exhibitions grant visitors an opportunity to acquire knowledge through the senses.

The way this occurs depends largely on how the works of art are presented and perceived. The exhibition 'Double Vision' seeks to illuminate this fact via a selection of prints by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and William Kentridge (b. 1955 in Johannesburg).

Transcending the two artists' temporal and cultural differences, the dynamic dialogue established between their printed works demonstrates how the renowned German Renaissance artist's visual ideas and motifs endure in works by William Kentridge, one of the most renowned artists of our time.

The focus of the display, however, is the two artists' unique approaches to the medium of the black-and-white print. The core of the works on view is taken from the Kupferstichkabinett's excellent holdings of Albrecht Dürer prints.

The 110 works by Dürer and Kentridge are divided among seven thematic rooms that shed light on the works' similarities and differences in terms of content, aesthetics, and media. Included among the works are the monumental Triumphal Arch by Dürer and stereoscopic works by William Kentridge. The strong expressive quality of black-and-white images becomes clear in the exhibition's comparison of various printing techniques such as woodcut, linocut, lithography, and etching.

A tour of the exhibition reveals the extent to which both artists consciously employ the drama of black lines on white paper to create their visual worlds. Proceeding from William Kentridge's critical account of modernity, which questions the era's purported rational and civilized nature, the exhibition shifts focus to the work of Albrecht Dürer, whose prints reflect the profound changes in politics, religion, society, and art at the dawn of the modern period.

Taking use of different forms of display, the exhibition generates a number of different relationships between the viewers and the works. It actively attempts to draw the visitor's attention to the great variety present in the works' content and aesthetic considerations. Selected works for comparison by other artists as well as excerpts from William Kentridge's animated films round out the exhibition. There will also be a special guided tour and accompanying programme.

The exhibition will be presented under the auspices of the DFG transfer project 'Evidenz on Exhibit', conducted by the academic research group 'BildEvidenz. History and Aesthetics' at the Freie Universität Berlin, in cooperation with the Kupferstichkabinett.